


Stranded

by NuMo



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: AU, Gen, Year of Hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 14,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if, for some ineffable reason, Kathryn Janeway had survived ramming the temporal weapon ship?</p><p>As always: The characters do not belong to me and I'm not making any profit, although I hope to reap some feedback.</p><p>This piece is beta-ed by the lovely Faerirose. Thanks mountaineous heaps for that!! Any remaining errors are, of course, my own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. December 10th, 2374

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fictive personal log. I wanted to start uploading it on December 10th, the date of the first log entry, but Real Life (sucker that it can be) intervened. So: here's all the chapters / log entries up to today (December 22nd); I will continue uploading each entry on its appropriate date, RL willing. 
> 
> If you want to be updated to each new entry, by all means use the handy 'subscribe' button! :-)

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day ten**

Well, I choose to call this day ten, but really, it probably isn’t. It’s day ten of constant consciousness, I can say that much at least. And day one of having ink, pen and paper. But let’s start this like a proper log.

This is Kathryn Janeway reporting. I’ve lost my ship, my crew, and contact to any Starfleet vessel or facility. I am on a planet I can’t put name or position to. It seems to be late spring, and days are slightly longer than those of Earth, at least that’s what the watch Chakotay gave me seems to indicate. The planet is inhabited by humanoids; I would judge their civilization to roughly equal nineteenth century earth. I largely try to avoid contact even though they resemble humans closely enough that I don’t stand out just by virtue of how I look. I’ll attract enough attention as an unpartnered woman, I’ve gathered.

I suppose I’m lucky to be alive, ten times over. The last thing I remember before regaining consciousness here is that I rammed that goddamn temporal weapon ship. I remember my determination to take that thing down, to take it with me to the grave if need be. I remember apologizing to my crew and my ship. I remember hoping like hell my madcap thought would turn out true. I remember the whimsical little thought that if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have the image of the weapon ship bursting into flame be the last thing I saw before scattering my atoms among foreign stars. 

Apparently, it was not to be. 

I remember only snatches of what followed, and even those seemed like hallucinations at the time. A clearing, and sunshine, and unfamiliar trees. A creek, near enough to crawl to, not deep enough to drown in. Pain. I remember thinking that if I died from whatever germs its water might contain, it would be only fitting. Denied a heroic death for a retching one – if Emperor Claudius could do it, so could I. I don’t think I was quite myself. I drank. I survived. 

Ten days ago I woke up alert enough to take in my surroundings and to follow the creek up into the hills where it came from, to search for a cave or similar shelter. It was slow going; that last attack of the weapon ship had thrown me across the bridge hard enough that I’d twisted my knee, and lying on a forest floor day and night hadn’t exactly helped matters. But I remembered my survival training – water, shelter, fire, food. I followed the first to find the second. I was pretty confident about the third, too – after all, I’d ordered all crewmembers, including myself, to acquire basic survival skills after that stupid joke of Chakotay’s on Hanon IV. No one would ever leave me high and dry like that, not my first officer nor any Maje. 

I did find a valley of caves, found one that was large enough to light a fire inside but small enough to be certain no one had taken residence in there but me. I found food that turned out to be edible, a veritable orchard watered by a larger sibling of the creek that had brought me here. I survived an encounter with a moderately venomous ground insect. I built a fire-pit. I slept a lot. 

The day before yesterday, I finally had enough of my energy back to explore my surroundings in earnest. I followed that larger stream and reached a small town after half a day. The UT allowed me to understand the people here well enough to barter for things I needed – which I did yesterday, with the clasp and first five links of the chain of Chakotay’s birthday present. Solid silver, after all. It will last me for a while, I gather – the clasp alone got me two sets of clothes and something between a machete and a hatchet. One chain link bought a smaller knife. Then I spent three more an assortment of foodstuffs, salt, a coil of rope, a lamp and oil, a tin bucket, two cooking pots, and a haversack to put it all in. 

I couldn’t walk past the shop selling paper, even though going in there cost me the fifth link. I’d started to mark the days with scratches on the wall but… well. Here we are, aren’t we. Not a captain anymore – no ships, no pips, no crew. I’ll be damned if I lose Kathryn Janeway as well. I’ll try to set up a comm. array with my badge and whatever materials the rest of the chain will buy. My long-term mission – contact Starfleet, if at all possible. It’ll take a while, though – I have to ascertain where I am in the universe first. I’ve heard talk of larger cities to the north; maybe there are universities there, scientists that search the heavens as Newton and Halley and Herschel did, instruments that can help me figure out where to point my little array. 

Going there will have to wait a bit, though. A long-term mission needs a base-camp, and my cave is far from being that. I myself am not my Sunday best. My knee hasn’t quite returned to full mobility, but it’ll have to do. My scratches and bruises have healed, and I also seem to be over most of the symptoms of adapting to the food. But walking for half a day and far into the night yesterday – and thank heavens for the two moons that lit my way – has left me tired as hell today.

Thinking about my situation and its options, I have a feeling I’ll be here for longer than the summer. So. Fortify my position, secure additional food sources. Find a way to store and preserve food, lay in firewood. Don’t get sick. Stay alive. Focus.


	2. December 13th, 2374

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day thirteen**

Rain. Three days of rain. I need to move out of this cave, the floor is covered in puddles. Fissures in the roof or at the back, I suppose, and the ground’s too rocky to make a drain; I’d ruin my hatchet if I tried. At least the river remains the same height – so far. The cave seems to sit high enough above it, but you never know, do you – I haven’t seen remnants of flash floods, but better safe than sorry. As it is, I’m whiling away the time by trying my hands at whittling – I can’t believe I forgot to buy a spoon. I can’t believe how hard it is to make one. At least the failed attempts might make wooden nails, or stakes, or something. Or kindling, I suppose. If Chakotay could see me now…

I’ve been thinking of a tub all day, for heaven’s sake. I blame the sound of running water.


	3. December 16th, 2374

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day sixteen**

I’ve found another cave and moved my belongings there. It’s slightly smaller than the first, wet one, but at least it has a draft. My lungs couldn’t stand the smoke my cooking fire filled the second cave with. And there’s water in this one, a little brook in a groove in the floor, trickling down the back wall and running along the left, forty centimeters wide and about fifteen deep. Its level is already falling, though, and the rest of the cave seems dry. I’ve followed it back as far as I could – it doesn’t seem connected to a larger source of water, so I suppose I’m safe from inundation. We’ll see if it remains flowing – en-suite water source, the luxury. I might build that tub yet, and indoor, too.

Sunny days mean my little back-to-front sundial experiment has yielded results. There are twenty-five hours and six minutes to a day, as close as I can tell, which is quite handy in fact – setting the clock back one hour each day, and two hours each ten days, will be easy enough, I suppose. 

I managed to kill another one of those insects before it could bite me, but it was a close thing – they’re nocturnal, apparently, and it crawled across my hand while I slept, the goddamn little critter. Would a hammock help? But how would I hang it? Or a camp bed? Can the critter crawl up a bed’s leg? Didn’t I read how people put bed legs in pots of water to keep ground insects away? Mosquito nets – do they have them here?

I guess I need to go into town one of these days. I have forty-five chain links left.


	4. December 17th, 2374

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day seventeen**

I’ve found a derelict little hut two valleys over. It’s too far gone to reconstruct, but the wooden boards it’s built of are salvageable, and there was some pottery left, too. I’m the proud owner of a plate that’s only slightly chipped around the edges, and a cup that’s nearly new. Now all I need is coffee. God, but I miss it. Water’s all fine and well, and I found plants here that were on sale as tea back in town, but that’s no substitute for coffee. Then again, I find I can go without electricity and soap and I never thought I could do that, so maybe I’ll be able to go without coffee for an extended period of time, too. 

I did on Voyager, after all, after the replicators failed. 

My memories threaten to incapacitate me at times. I try to keep them at bay by working; taking down that cabin for its boards is quite the task, as is foraging and collecting firewood. I do that every day, rain or no – I have no idea how much stock I’ll need to survive winter, but better safe than sorry. I’ve said that before, but it’s true, isn’t it. And yet every evening, tired though I might be, there comes a time when my thoughts start to turn circles. Faces appear in the firelight. Sometimes I’m hearing voices. I recite the periodic table, or Federation member states, ordered alphabetically or by size or by year of discovery. I’m not down to counting sheep yet, but it’s been only sixteen nights so far.

I want to build a bed from the boards and maybe a shelf. Which means I need nails or something similar, which means I’m going into town tomorrow, weather allowing. I’ll try and see if any of the fruit or vegetables growing in my orchard will fetch a good price, too. Maybe the tea seller can recommend something to help me sleep. If I can eat their food, maybe their teas will agree with me as well.


	5. December 28th, 2374

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day twenty-eight**

Bad idea about that tea. Or maybe another of those critters got me while I was out. Or both.

No lingering effects, though, lucky me; and I think I’ll be strong enough by tomorrow to go into town again and buy detergent and soap. Forty-two chain links left. Should be enough.


	6. December 28th, 2374, truly

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day twenty-eight**

No, the date is not a mistake – I just hadn’t been knocked out by that concoction for as long as I thought I had been. The tea seller told me today’s date, looking at me as if I were a little dense – it might be beneficial to be thought of that way, so I let him continue to do so. It’s not as if I cared. I also learned that it’s not every day they hold market, but every fifth, which means I’ve been lucky so far. 

I got lucky when I left, too – or maybe it was instinct. Whatever it was, I knew I was being followed, knew it in my gut. I managed to hide and get away from them, but I need to be more careful. I can’t afford to draw this much attention to myself. It’s one thing to be recognized by grocers; it’s quite another to be followed, by whoever did follow me today. I can’t have them find out where I live. The cave’s entrance is concealed pretty well, and turns twice before opening into my little haven, but I can’t conceal my fire’s smoke nor the fact that I’ve used a certain part of the valley as an outhouse for weeks. The track is becoming visible. 

Maybe I need to search for another town. I was there often enough to learn its name, Tshesh Ken, but now the villagers are starting to ask after mine, and that doesn’t sit well with me.


	7. January 2nd, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day thirty-three**

This is my last sheet of paper until I can buy more. 

A four-hour hike brought me to the highest peak around here yesterday. There seems to be a larger town to the east, situated on a sizeable body of water and big enough for factories with smoking chimneys. Easier to remain unnoticed in a city than a town, and maybe they have a learning institution or know of one. I still need to find out about this society’s state-of-astronomical-technology, after all. I even saw the road leading to that town, and I think I know how to reach it. I’ll set out tomorrow, weather permitting.

Sleeping on a bed feels heavenly, even if the mattress is not much more than a bag stuffed with hay. I can even put up with the smell, now that having soap has uncorked my olfactory sense once more. Making the trip back from Tshesh Ken with that unwieldy thing on my back was hell on my knee, though. Three detours because I didn’t want to take the mattress through the underbrush and tear it. At least this way, I didn’t add to a potential track between my shelter and the town. 

Still, and with all the comfort it affords me, I have difficulties sleeping. There are times when I wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding because of a sound, imagined or not. Other times, I wake from a dream of fire licking up my cheek. Sometimes I wake from the sheer pressure of silence and blackness around me, willing myself to believe that my combadge still works, still emits that homing signal. I know its power source is near inexhaustible. I take care to keep it in my pocket wherever I go, on the off chance that the rocks of my cave might dampen its signal. What wouldn’t I give for a tricorder to verify that. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more stranded – not when I gave the order to destroy the Caretaker’s array, not when the Kazon put us all on that god-forsaken planet, not even on New Earth for that matter. Small wonder. 

I am alone. 

Even if I manage to boost my comm. signal, there’s no guarantee that it’ll work. There’s no guarantee that I’m anywhere the signal can be picked up, or anywhen – the ship I blew up was in the business of altering time, after all. There’s no guarantee it’ll be picked up by someone benevolent – that thought almost disturbs me more than the idea that I might be on my own for the rest of my life. If my signal lures the Vidiians here, or the Kazon… At least the planet’s society probably doesn’t hold much interest for the Borg. Do I? They aren’t that petty, surely.

What wouldn’t I give for company. I’ve caught myself waiting for praise from Chakotay when I finally managed to whittle something spoon-shaped. I’ve found myself discussing the sense of my actions with Tuvok or smirking about an imagined teasing of Tom’s when something doesn’t turn out the way I planned. I’m cataloguing things as irrelevant, efficient, or adequate. I’ve imagined my mother’s arms around me when I lay shivering with the effects of that goddamn tea.

Let the record show that I miss my friends. 

Let it also show that I have no intention of ever giving up. If I struggle, if I ever get close to faltering, I’ll read these words. Chin up, Kathryn Janeway. On you go.


	8. January 22nd, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day fifty-three**

Paper – the least of my worries, and yet it feels so good to set my pen to it again. This is an account of what happened in the last three weeks.

The day after my last entry, I walked to that city I saw – Arwaliss, I learned when I arrived. Not a nice place. Seafront cities rarely are, and I took every precaution I could think of. Still.

I suppose I’m lucky I’m not on a ship for the sailor’s amusement. I suppose I’m lucky to have gotten away at all. 

Starfleet combat training is no use against a gang of eight, most assuredly not when the second one to attack me slapped the knife out of my hand, goddamnit. I suppose I’m lucky I didn’t kill anyone. As it was, my resistance did earn me a beating, but at least I came away without broken bones. At first. After they’d brought me to their town house… 

Maybe they would have treated me differently if I hadn’t fought as hard as I had, but if they ever come for me again, I swear I’ll fight even dirtier. After what they did to me, I am more than ready to kill with my bare hands, if necessary. And if it costs me my life, at least I’ll go down fighting. 

I escaped their three-day imprisonment using my wits, a stroke of luck, and my female wiles, however much it sickened me to simper to that man. Too bad I couldn’t see his face when I knocked him out, but the sweet way in which he went down was deeply satisfying nevertheless. I bound and gagged him, took his dagger to replace my knife, took his cloak and purse as punitive damages, found and took my combadge (and thanked the heavens), and briefly considered putting a torch to the whole godforsaken place. But I knew I had to be gone before the others returned, drunk as usual, from their nightly trip outside. 

Wrapped and cloaked and lording it over the gate guards, I persuaded them to let me go my way even though it was night – seems I haven’t lost my command presence. Once outside the city’s boundaries, I didn’t stop until I arrived here, however much my body complained. I guess I was lucky that one of the moons was up, allowing me to find my way back eventually. I did get lost twice, and I barely can put into words how relieved I was when I finally recognized a knoll of rock that I knew marked the entrance to my valley of caves. 

I bravely resisted the temptation to jump fully clothed into the river. Tired though I was, I wanted to be clean more than I wanted to sleep. So I stripped and, glad that it was warm enough to do so, took a night-time river bath under a full moon. I remember laughing at the sheer difference between image and reality, at memories of other night-time bathings; remember flinching at how mad I sounded. I used up half my soap that night, however much it burned in my cuts. I also left the clothes where I’d dropped them. Looking back on it now, I knew I should have taken them inside, but that night I just couldn’t be bothered – roaming animals were welcome to them, for all I cared, and never mind the fact that I only had a second set left.

I dressed my wounds as best I could, again considering myself lucky not to have broken any bones. I vomited once, at the thought of pregnancy, but the men had looked at me with such obvious distaste that I guess I don’t resemble their womenfolk too closely – here’s to hoping that I’m different enough not to have conceived. I don’t know if my inhibitor is still active after all this time. I don’t even know when the Doctor updated it last. I have no idea how I’d deal with that on top of everything else. 

Then, personal safety. With shards of pottery from the hut and strips of cloth from my skirt – far too torn by what happened to be of further use – I made trip wires as the sun rose, glad that the fabric was dark green instead of, say, orange. I improvised a belt with sheaths, too, to have both dagger and machete ready at all times, and tried to remember every lesson I ever had about close combat. I dragged my bed outside – going into my cave for soap had left me feeling far too claustrophobic. I slept with both hands armed. If you could call it sleep.

The bleeding had stopped by next morning, and the bruises had faded after another week. By then I’d used up the rest of my soap bar, so I went to Tshesh Ken again on what I hoped was market day. Turned out it wasn’t; I’d lost one day somewhere, which rattled me to the point that I left the grocer’s shop very abruptly and without the soap I’d intended to buy. In fact, I didn’t buy anything. I apologized to the shopkeeper when I went back earlier today. 

I also remembered to ask for preserved foodstuffs or methods to preserve what I have in my valley orchard, and I bartered part of my fresh produce for a jar of something pickled. I’ll have to see whether I can stomach it, but I do need sustenance in case I’m stuck here for the winter. In that vein, I plan to go exploring again tomorrow, for cooler caves to store food in. I’ll probably need to find a way to secure such a larder, too. I don’t have enough processed wood to build a large door, but maybe I’ll find another cave like mine, with a winding, narrow entrance that will be easy to block.

I do hope my body will tell me I’m not pregnant, and soon, to put that worry to rest, at least. I’ve never gone off the inhibitor before, so I don’t know how long the protection lasts and at what time I should expect my menstruation to set in again. This insecurity bothers the hell out of me, to tell the truth. At least the pain has stopped and I’m moving freely again. 

I don’t remember when I’ve last had a peaceful night’s sleep. I’ve asked the tea seller about the leaves he sold me last time – turns out I prepared them the wrong way. Combining them with another herb that’s growing in profusion two valleys over and preparing a weaker infusion has yielded an acceptable result. Still. Even more so than on Voyager, turning thoughts and restless dreams have become my constant companions. I keep seeing and hearing people that aren’t, that can’t be there. Symptoms of trauma, probably, but I see no option other than going on with my everyday tasks and my long-term mission of finding a way of being found. Focus.

No progress on my comm. array, though, and I shudder at the thought of returning to Arwaliss. No one in Tshesh Ken was able to tell me whether there’s a center of learning there, either. They did mention a university or something similar in Filnd, the main city of these parts, but apparently it’s a ten-day walk, and however full that purse I took was, I might need the money for other things than a coach ticket.


	9. February 6th, 2375

I’ve never felt so wretched. It started after my last entry, and if I’m pregnant, and remember my biology lessons correctly, that would coincide with implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, joining a hybrid organism to my body for the first time. I keep hoping that it might be some form of infection from what they did, but that hope is waning.

I’ve rarely felt this frightened. For the last two weeks I’ve felt dizzy, nauseated, and exhausted every single day just doing my chores. Of course an experience like this is traumatic, and I’d been prepared for feeling upset, but it’s far, far more than that. I feel perpetually hung over – that would be the best way to put it, I suppose. The sun is too bright, it’s difficult to keep down food, and sometimes even the river water makes me sick. And I don’t think, somehow, that all this is just the aftereffect of eating the pickles I bought.

I have no idea what I’ll do if I’m pregnant. Hybrid pregnancies can be dangerous, I know that. But I can’t go for medical help without revealing that I’m not a native to this world, and how much help would a native doctor be in any case? How would I end a pregnancy? Even if I were on Earth, I wouldn’t know the first thing about an abortion other than going to a doctor. And while I’m quite certain that a society that procreates humanoid fashion knows how to abort unwanted children, I doubt I could use their methods on me even if they’re legal (which I don’t know, either, and how would I ask?) There’s no telling what an abortive drug of this world would do to my body chemistry – and physical abortion is complete out of the question, too.

The question whether I’d want such a child at all… keeps me awake at night. My thoughts on the matter are too varied, too unproductive, too wild to commit to paper. 

On a more positive note, I’m at ease with sleeping inside again. I have found a cave that seems suitable for storing food; it’s quite cold in there even now, the hottest part of summer (at least that’s what the merchants say), and I think my stack of boards will suffice to make a door for its entrance. It seems to connect to a larger system of caves, judging by how the air moves in it. So far, I have only detected small tunnels, not nearly large enough for a human to crawl through. I still need to block them against vermin, but apart from that the cave seems to be a good choice. I’ll see whether I can’t find wire mesh, and maybe some gauze to guard against insects, when I go into town next time.


	10. February 11th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day seventy-three,**

The endless hangover continues. I try to remember everything I can think of regarding Ensign Wildman’s pregnancy, but she had 24th century medical technology to deal with any concerns about hybrid biology. She never showed any weakness where I could see it, but then, I was her captain – she’d probably eat her own foot before appearing unprofessional towards or within sight of her captain. I know I would have.

I don’t have anyone to be professional for here. 

I don’t even know whether my decision to ram the weapons ship even worked. I can only hope it was the right thing to do, that it reset the timeline on its original course, even though it appears to have cost Voyager her captain. I have no doubt that in the capable hands of my officers Voyager will continue, and fare well, on her way home. In much the same way I can only hope that someday I’ll be found. 

I hate being stuck like this. It seems I can’t avoid thinking about it any longer. Maybe my time on Voyager is finally catching up to me – however stranded I’ve felt on Voyager, this is worse. Maybe it’s my loneliness – at least I had friends on my ship. I hope to hell it’s not first-trimester mood swings. 

I’ve developed a rash, blamed it on the mattress, and tried to make hay to refill it, but that did not turn out the way I planned. I have no doubt that my grandparents are laughing at me; Grandpa Morgan was the last real farmer in the county, and was so happy with my mother’s insistence on raising her daughters the traditional way. But cooking on a stove (which I learned as a kid) and making hay (which I didn’t) are two very different pairs of shoes, obviously. Or maybe this planet’s vegetation needs something I don’t know about to turn into what I need. 

I managed to fix the storage cave with a door and had enough wood left to make a few shelves. Now they sit empty and waiting, and I can’t help feeling disconcerted when I see them. Three months ago I would have appreciated any furniture that didn’t threaten to break apart at a too-quick movement. Now those empty shelves ask me why I’m doing this, why I’m going on when there’s nowhere, no one to go to. 

Winter will come. Focus, Janeway.


	11. February 26th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day eighty-eight**

I curse the day I ever took the words “week of hell” into my mouth. I’m not superstitious, never have been, but somehow it seems as if Fate has heard them and turned them into this parody of a life. A week became a month became a year became… became me, stranded here, alone, going nowhere. Possibly pregnant. I’ve missed my period for such a long time, and the feeling of being hung over, complete with vomiting, continues despite laying off the pickles. I’m ravenously hungry at times, and can’t tolerate even the thought of food at others. I damn near cried when I thought of strawberries this morning, I craved them so much. My breasts hurt. I keep falling asleep, but I don’t know if that would be a sign; I still don’t sleep well at night – of course I don’t. 

So, to take inventory (thinking of the positive aspects helps in traumatic times, or so I seem to remember):

I have a cave with a door I can secure and a bed that doesn’t give me a rash anymore. I have a shelf, made from planks and straight branches, which holds my belongings and my food. I have an indoor water source and two fire-pits – one inside the cave, one outside, because there are still days when I can’t stand being inside. Over the indoor one, I’ve rigged something of a dry-stone range for my pots; outside, I have a tripod. I have two pots, a plate and cup, a hatchet, knife and spoon. Five spoons, in fact, now I’ve got the hang of how to make them. 

I have a whetstone for my knife and hatchet, and I know how to use all three. I have a water bucket, a bundle of cut branches to sweep my floor, a piece of soap, a jar of detergent, and a jar of salt. I have a small jar of chalk to brush my teeth with, and I know which tree gives me the right kind of branch to use for that purpose. I have the remnants of my uniform, two more sets of clothes minus one skirt, and a man’s cloak that is too wide and too long but very, very warm. I have rope, and that’s come in handy more often than I’d have guessed when I bought it. I’ve found a way to make a very large rucksack, for example, using that coil of rope to bundle up my cloak, and it’s the best way I’ve found so far to bring my harvests to the market.

I know which kinds of fruit and vegetables I can eat without getting sick. I have learned how to prepare these, as well as others that would make me sick if eaten raw. I have an agreement with a farmer beyond the village – she makes jam for me when I bring her the fruit, and she has agreed to prepare preserves as well, at a rate of twenty-five percent of the harvest. Seeing as she provides the containers and asks no questions about me or the harvest’s origin, I consider that fair enough. I know what herbs I can use for a tea to help me sleep and for one to keep me awake, even though that one leaves me with a terrible headache afterwards. 

I know which critters are harmless and which I have to avoid, and I’m grateful that there seem to be no large predators around. I know the local wildlife and their markings, and I’m getting adept at setting traps. I have a trader willing to buy the pelts of the animals I manage to catch, and I’ve rigged a smoking and a drying rack. I’m getting quite proficient at all kinds of woodwork. I’m quite proud of it, to tell the truth. 

I know which caves around here are dry, which have draft enough for a fire, which are inhabited by small animals. I have turned one of the caves I consider safe into a pantry – with a second door and more shelves and boxes for food. They’re filling up, even - slowly, sure enough, but they do. I have an outhouse, or rather, a bench that I can sit on while I do my business, and I’ve taken care to move it to a different hole every four weeks, even though the digging is tough going. 

Lastly, I guess I’m incredibly lucky with the weather. After those initial three days of rain, it’s been dry and sunny every day, to a point where I can virtually see the fruit ripening on the trees and bushes. Airborne humidity seems quite high, though; the underbrush is wet every morning. Maybe this is why making hay didn’t work so well; I’ll take the cut grass to somewhere that’s dryer, next time. I’ve seen clouds over the mountains to the south, but there they stay, releasing their moisture into the rivers that run through most of these valleys here. I have no idea how wild or mild a winter here might be, though, and I can’t think of a way to ask. I have several stacks of firewood concealed in caves and out-of-the-way places across these valleys. They should last me for three and a half months of winter, on a basis of needing three times as much as I use now. Winter supposedly arrives within the next two months or so I’ve gathered, so I’m aiming to double what I have over the next weeks, just to be sure.

I am in as much good health as I can be. My knee is no longer aching, and my bruises and scratches are healed. My insides hurt in a different way, though, and my back, too, but that might be due to the sleeping arrangement. 

I need to find out which food I can store without jars or bottling, like Earth’s potatoes. I need to dig more latrine holes before the ground freezes and makes it too difficult. I need to find a way to set up that comm. array. I need to stay calm if, indeed, I should be pregnant.

I need company. 

I’m talking to myself – nothing new there. But heavens help me, I’m talking to birds, too, bushes, trees, my fire, and the small, squirrel-like mammals that populate a few of the caves. I draw the line at talking to imaginary friends, even though they persist in talking to me. 

I wish I knew what has happened to my crew. 

I miss Chakotay’s honest opinion and the way he delivered it, and his unwavering friendship. How he’d take to this situation I find myself in. How he’d delight in seeing me rough it for real. How he’d like my hair’s length – I clearly saw the look of disappointment on his face the day I appeared on the bridge in a bob cut last year. Oh how he pined - no matter how sensible or practical my haircut turned out to be in the last months. 

Blind Tuvok, who returned my embrace. I can’t think of him.

Seven – no, I can’t think about her either. 

I certainly can’t think of my mother, my sister, my friends. Marc. Kes. God.

I wonder if Tom will ever make a move on B’Elanna, or on Harry, for that matter. I miss his sassiness, his good humor. I laugh so little. Tom could always make me laugh. Neelix, too.

The Doctor – what wouldn’t I give to have him. For all his abrasiveness, for all that he tried to relieve me of command that day (and God knows I earned it. Part of me was in complete agreement, wanted to throw away that goddamn suffocating mantle of command as fast and as far as I could, but I couldn’t let him see that, could I), he always had the best interest of his charges on his programmed mind and in his photonic heart. And if I really am pregnant, I wouldn’t want anyone else at my side.

I’d want B’Elanna Torres at my side for anything. We might not always agree; we might have clashed at times, but we think along the same lines, engineer and scientist, workaholic and micro-manager, both obsessive and stubborn and hiding our vulnerabilities too well.

Harry. Oh, Harry. Eternal Ensign to the Everlasting Captain. How this title jars in my mind. I’m no captain any longer, I certainly don’t feel everlasting; and yet life goes on, and I with it. 

There are days when I don’t know why.


	12. March 6th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day ninety-six**

Three months on this planet, and finally, finally one step closer to my long-term goal. Sheet metal isn’t available in Tshesh Ken as a rule, but this travelling merchant had wire mesh. A whole roll of it, for the local equivalent of rabbit hutches, apparently. I could barely persuade him to give me all of it - severely depleted my purse, too. I bought a bolt of fabric to use as mosquito net as well, and a new can of oil for my lamp, but the wire mesh really made my day.

I’ve been working to get the mesh into a parabolic shape all day. I still have no idea where to point it, and I need more than my dagger or the bulky tools available in town to connect it to my combadge, but – it’s a step.

It almost makes up for… what I can’t avoid any longer. 

I am pregnant. 

I must be. In the sixty days that have passed since I escaped from Arwaliss I haven’t bled, and I’ve felt sick for more than six weeks now. At least this seems to be easing a little. Eating has become something of a chore, though, especially considering what little I have in the way of choice. Killing and skinning animals makes me nauseous, but I have to go on doing it; I need the proteins and fat and the fur trader’s money if I’m to survive winter, pregnant or not. 

Do I dare hope for a miscarriage? It certainly not ethical to do so, but the fact remains that this child is not the fruit of a consenting union, that it is a hybrid presenting an unknown medical risk to its mother and itself, and that it needs to be born at some point. Cold logic tells me my chances are far better without having to carry, deliver and care for an infant. 

And yet. 

I would no longer be alone.

But that wouldn’t be fair on a child, would it? And a miscarriage has its own complement of medical risks. Heavens help me, I feel so torn. If I knew how, I’d try to contact my spiritual guide, but as with so many things I consider esoteric, I trusted that it would suffice if someone at my beck and call knew it for me. And now here I am. 

Chin up.


	13. March 10th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day one hundred**

A hundred days, and I feel no cause for celebration at all. At least my comm. contraption should work; all the necessary connections are in place now. Curious that the spice merchant would have a clockmaker’s screwdriver and basic electromechanical components (he did charge an arm and a leg for the coil of copper wire). Everyone needs a hobby, I guess. He commented on my state of health, too – I am getting too well-known, and… it shook me, to be asked if I was alright, even if he probably just meant well, or pandered to a recurring customer. 

And I have been followed again, on my way out of town, but again managed to shake them off. God, but I am tired of this. Part of me longs to hide with someone, spill my guts to them, finally let someone else take that burden and tell me everything is going to be alright, but how do I know that’s how they’ll react? Friendly as they’ve been, these people don’t even have combustion engines, much less warp drive. And I still don’t know how far they are in terms of astronomy. 

So, no reprieve for this soldier. 

Here’s to hoping my comm. array will allow Starfleet to find me. I’ve pointed it at what might be the Pleiades, from what I can make out with my bare eyes, and now my task is to verify that, and wait.


	14. Meanwhile (or not, depending)

“Hey, Aunt Kathy, mind if I drop in on you?”

Kathryn looks up from the weekly security report and smiles. “q – of course not. It’s been what, two weeks?”

The youngster gives her his usual I’m-ahead-of-you grin and flops onto her sofa, putting up his feet on the tea table. “To _you_.”

“I guess so,” Kathryn narrows her eyes and glares at the offending limbs, to no avail. “How do you do, then?”

“Oh, quite well, quite well.” He tries to sound unconcerned, so of course alarm klaxons go off in his godmother’s hindbrain instantly.

“Omnipotent you might be, q, but your poker face is still lacking. What’s wrong?”

He takes a deep breath. “Q sent me, actually. I… I’m to apologize.”

“But you already did. My ready room still smells of roses.”

“Not about that, Aunt Kathy.” q’s expression wavers between exasperation at human limitedness and dread. “I…”

When he doesn’t go on, Captain Kathryn Janeway tries to prepare for the worst. “Get it over with. It can’t be that bad, surely?” _Although, come to think of it, it probably is._ His next words (a veritable torrent of them, actually) affirm that vividly. “You mean to say a _year_ vanished, just like that?” It doesn’t bear thinking about. They _had_ taken Kes’ warning to heart, and then the Krenim scout ship’s, too, and had detoured that part of space, and now q’s telling her… 

“Not quite a year, but that’s just your typical human vagueness, I suppose. Yes.” Suddenly, his face lights up. “Hey, want me to show you what happened? It was brilliant!” He snaps his fingers, and Kathryn finds herself on her sofa next to him, a can of popcorn between them, and a view of an incredibly torn-up version of Voyager’s bridge on her desktop monitor, positioned on the tea table next to q’s feet.

“This is when Voyager hid in that nebula – look, there you come in!”

“That’s not-” _This isn’t me. It can’t be._ It’s not the fact that her apparel is clearly not regulation – the bridge isn’t exactly up to spec, either, after all – but… that cough. The look on her double’s face is bordering on manic, and the way she brushes off the EMH… _seven other crewmembers? Seven?! **Who?**_ “q, this can’t have-”

“Oh, just because it isn’t nice doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And you were so incredi-”

“Will you stop referring to her as ‘me’?” Kathryn points at the screen. “That is not me. I have no memories whatsoever of those events.”

“Oh, of _course_ you don’t, Aunt Kathy.” The teenaged patience in his voice grates on her nerves. “The timeline collapsed, after all. But you see… I…” He looks guilty, but only for a moment. Then his eyes brighten again, at what’s happening on the little screen. “Look! _Look!_ This is when y- alright, _she,_ then, went ape-shit on the deflector controls.”

Kathryn’s throat runs dry at what she sees that other version of her doing. Despite herself, she finds herself riveted to the screen just as her godson is. She does feel extremely put out at his nonchalantly tossing popcorn into his mouth, though. 

This does _not_ call for popcorn. 

“And then she faced down that obnoxious hologram when he tried to relieve her of command. There, listen, _listen!_ ‘Because before I give up command you’ll have to shoot me’,” q goes along, by heart, apparently, with Captain Janeway on the screen. “Isn’t she the single most-”

“Stop this, q!” she fires at him.

“But I can’t, Aunt Kathy,” he shrugs, spreading his arms after tossing another load of popcorn into his mouth. “It already happened, see?”

“That hasn’t stopped you, or at least your father, from meddling before, as I recall. It’s only timelines for you, isn’t it, to be manipulated at will?”

“Well, maybe, but… oh, _look!_ You _have_ to see this. Brings tears to my eyes every time. You see, Chuckles replicated this watch for her birthday, and-” the rest of his words just passes her by while Kathryn listens to, and watches, her other self’s heart break in her first officer’s quarters. Not for the first time, either, to judge by the look in her doppelganger’s eyes. _Seven crewmembers left._ And those quarters obviously aren’t lived in any longer. The throw over that chair- _Chakotay. Good God._

“And then she forged an alliance – isn’t that the expression? – and they went after the baddies, and, awww, _look_ at that, will you?” He twirls his fingers in thin air, to tune up the sound, apparently, and they watch Captain Kathryn Janeway deploy her forces and hug her Vulcan second-in-command goodbye. “Are you _crying_ , Aunt Kathy?”

Of course she is. _Seven people, of a crew of over a hundred and forty. She must have broken up the family – didn’t q say something about escape pods? And now she sends the rest of them away, too._ How many times has Kathryn Janeway, _any_ Kathryn Janeway, feared it would come to that? How many times has she held herself apart, to be able to give that order, come the time? Oh, her other self gives good reasons, but this Kathryn knows exactly what that Kathryn is doing. _The Captain dies alone._ The way they all leave her, one by one, is ample evidence that they know, too. But they leave anyway, because they have to, because she is The Captain and she has ordered them to go. 

And now q is looping the goddamn passage, so Kathryn has time to watch her officers take their leave again. B’Elanna, stopping for a heartbeat to pay her respects with an open gaze, tender and fierce as only a Klingon warrior can give it. Harry, face smudged, barely able to meet his captain’s eyes for heartbreak. Tuvok, blind, _embracing_ \- “Damnit, q, this has to stop.” Kathryn’s voice is raw; she can’t turn her eyes away – _won’t_ turn her eyes away. The Captain deserves no less. “Do something. _Help_ her! She can’t-”

“Exactly!” q crows, bouncing on the sofa, then brushing a few spilled kernels to the floor. “I _knew_ you’d see it my way! I mean, she _had_ to ram the weapons ship, no two ways about it, but I couldn’t let her die, Aunt Kathy, she was so bad-ass! She-”

“What?” It’s barely more than a whisper, if a forceful one. “She’s _alive?!_ ” Kathryn slowly turns her head to stare at him, ignoring the explosion blooming brilliantly on the little screen. How can he be so… ebullient, so cavalier about this business? When it’s obviously _his_ meddling that-

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” He winks. He has the goddamn gall to _wink_.

“Where? _Where,_ q?” A growl, barely contained. When Kathryn’s hands flex of their own volition, at least q has the sense to look wary.

“Uh, the first place that came to mind, really. And it’s not so much a question of where, but of when, isn’t it?”

Kathryn fights to keep her voice calm. “For the sake of my ever-waning patience, q-”

“Oh, stop glaring, Aunt Kathy. Look. _Look!_ She’s alive and well, and doing fine on her own.” The picture on the screen changes, to an autumnal valley filled with fruit trees and a figure walking among them, picking, occasionally eating. It reminds Kathryn of Tuscany, or New Earth, until the figure turns around and reaches up, and the motion presses her shirt to her body.

“She’s _pregnant?!_ ” Is there nothing that fate – or q – won’t throw at her?

“Yeah, and just look how beautiful it made her hair – makes you envious, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll ask you only one more time, q – where is she?” This particular kind of intonation has sent lesser beings scrambling, but q – shrugs.

“Oh, far too far from here. You can’t help,” the way he shakes his head is too damn patronizing, omnipotent be damned; “and I don’t think you should, you know. Might upset her. She thinks Voyager’s blown up, after all – did you see that explosion, anyway?”

“Stop evading, q, this is not a game. I don’t care what she did, what she thinks or where and when she is. Get her out of there. Now.”

“Look, this is _exactly_ why I’ve told my father it would be a bad idea to tell you-”

“I _beg_ your pardon!” The words shoot from her lips like a volley of phaser bursts.

“He wouldn’t listen, would he,” the youngster goes on, oblivious to Kathryn’s outburst, “just told me to get it over with. I can’t bring her here, and no, I can’t bring you there either.”

“Well, can you at least tell me where she is so I can alert Starfleet to send out a rescue mission?”

His eyes narrow. “You know… I can’t really do that, either, but…” His face brightens. “Actually, Aunt Kathy, that is an _awesome_ idea. _Yes!_ ” He punches the air, and vanishes.

Kathryn shakes her head slowly, still shaken. Then she reaches for her combadge, only to be interrupted by- 

“Oh, and don’t tell anyone. I’ll make it right for her, I promise. Trust me. _Please,_ Aunt Kathy, let _me_ handle this, will you?” And her godson’s face disappears through the bulkhead again.


	15. May 30th, 2375

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the long delay in posting - on the other hand, this means you get a lot of chapters all at once! :-)

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 181**

If winter continues like this, I might stand a good chance of getting through this. Today is the first day with frost on the ground, and still my cave is nice and warm. I’ve installed a double door in that winding hallway of mine; I guess that’s the main reason for the warmth in here, even if entering is a little awkward now. I hope I’ll still fit when I get to my third trimester. 

Some animal had gotten in before I fixed that second door, though, and apparently it loved something about my ink. It overturned the bottle, making quite a mess of things and ruining the most recent stack of my log. More than two months are gone. I’ll try to recap them.

The pregnancy continues – the initial period of adaptation (I guess that’s what it’s been) seems to be over. I’ve put on weight, and had to sacrifice another chain link for new clothes. Thirty-two left. Thankfully, my cloak is large enough to conceal my waistline when I go into town, even now. And thankfully, even though quite a few people recognize me by now, no one is curious enough to come investigating. 

On the other hand, maybe that means no one is curious enough to look up at the stars and start asking questions about their planet, sun, and place in the grand scheme of things. My enquiries as to the possibility of a coach trip to the nearest city have dissuaded me to try before winter turns. Apparently, I missed my chance – even though it rarely rains here, it does so a few miles further to the north, and the rain turns roads into bogs, disrupting all travel for the winter months. Well. By the time that’s over, I’ll be a mother, if things go according to what vague plans I have. 

Pregnancy, at least in these parts, is not talked about publicly. I couldn’t afford to attract unwanted attention to my aforementioned waistline, so I had to keep a low profile; I haven’t been able to find out much about childbirth and how it might differ from the human version. I don’t even know their gestation period. I might be in for a surprise if it’s much shorter than I think it should be. I’m four and a half months along now, and I have, plain and simple, no idea of what’s normal at this point, but I try to remain as calm as I can. 

Accepting the fact that a baby is growing inside me isn’t easy. I’m still not resolved whether I’m looking forward to having a baby at all – Marc and I had given it some thought, but all the things that happened once I’d found myself in the Delta Quadrant chased that thought clean out of my mind. And now I’m stranded in yet another way, and though I wouldn’t have dreamed of bringing a child into this, either, it’s been taken out of my hands, hasn’t it. 

I can’t forget their hands all over me, the sickening feeling of complete and utter helplessness. I don’t take kindly to being vulnerable at the best of times, and that… wasn’t the best of times. And I do try not to think of it too often because I’ve read that it affects the baby if the mother is stressed. But I can’t stop my mind at night, and I…

But nightmares aren’t the stuff of logs, are they. 

My pre-winter (having grown up in Indiana, I can’t call this winter, and it’s not over, anyway – might turn worse yet) inventory sees my larder at eighty-three percent capacity, my stacks of firewood at eighty-five, my indoor water source still flowing copiously enough for cooking and ablutions. I have enough warm clothing, enough oil for my lamp, enough pre-dug holes in the ground (and finally a shovel, too). I’ve bought a chamber pot so I don’t have to go outside quite every time I have to pee (which has become distressingly often, but that’s normal in a pregnancy, isn’t it?), and I’ve bought two more buckets, to have water at the ready for emergencies. I’ve also procured a bottle of the strongest alcohol I’ve been able to find, difficult though it was as a woman. I even have a little assortment of needles and threads. I’ve got a huge pile of paper, and two more bottles of ink, to keep me occupied. 

I keep my knife sharp, my things clean, my eyes open. 

I am ready for winter, as much as I’ll ever be.


	16. June 16th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 198**

I think winter solstice has come and gone – I don’t have much to do except watching the sun rise and set, at the moment. Oh, and check that my comm. array hasn’t come apart on me.

I paint, sometimes; I can’t afford to sketch on paper, so I draw on the ground or in the snow. I think it’s better that way, anyway. Those sketches are bleak, always. Art doesn’t lie, Phoebe used to say. I scuff them out immediately, or let new snow cover them or the sun’s warmth melt them away. I tried to sketch Voyager once and it looked off until I realized that I’d placed the phaser arrays one deck too low. I stared at it for what seemed like half an hour, then went and spent a whole bucket of water erasing every last trace of the image. It still came back to haunt me that night.

I can’t wonder what happened to it. To them. They’re going on without me, one way or the other. 

This inactivity is driving me to distraction.


	17. June 18th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 200**

Another anniversary. And movement within me. It’s made all the thoughts start to turn once more. Has started me talking to thin air again, too. I feel stir-crazy at times, and having no outside input doesn’t help, does it. I know all this, as I know the reasons for it – Basic Command Psychology, after all – and yet I can’t help wishing, wishing, wishing.

What if I had stayed out of Krenim space? I remember Kes telling me to avoid them. I remember Chakotay practically begging me to turn around, several times, with good words or sharp looks. I remember every last one of the looks he shot me as I went on, and on, and on. And yet, as always, he had my back, until he disappeared. What if I had heeded him?

What if I hadn’t rammed that ship? 

What if Chakotay was here with me? Or Tuvok? Anyone?

What if there is, somewhere out there, a version of me that never had to face what I face daily? Don’t they say that for every decision you make, another version of you decides the opposite? 

Is there, in all the universes, in all the timelines, another Kathryn Janeway who feels as truly and utterly god-forsaken as I do?


	18. June 21st, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 203**

I ran into the local equivalent of wolves today. I surprised them in my larder when I came in there this morning, and managed to kill three of them with my hatchet (they’re smaller than Earth’s wolves), but I did sustain a nasty bite to my arm in the process, and a fine set of bruises and scratches. My back aches abominably, as well – the last of them, fleeing, knocked me into a shelf. I hit my head in the process, too. No contusion, as far as I can make out, though, and I’ve cleaned the bite and the scratches as well as I was able to. 

The incident hasn’t affected the pregnancy, I think, or at least it seems so. I think I have felt movement since it happened, but I’m not certain.

I left one of the carcasses in front of the larder, hoping it’ll serve as warning to other predators or more of its kind.


	19. June 28th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 210**

The fever and swelling caused by the bite wound is down, and the fetus moves still. No more burglars in my larder, either, although I heard some sniffling the night after it happened.

The other two carcasses are ruined, though – I couldn’t prepare them, after all. I dragged them out today, all the way over to the valley I like least. Let them rot there. 

On my way back, I found a fossil - similar to an ammonite, or possibly a gastropod. Not much larger than the palm of my hand, it reminded me of caves on Mars, and I stood there for the longest time, staring at it.

It sits on a stone outcrop now, next to where I usually put my lamp. I don’t know why I took it, but I couldn’t walk away from it either.


	20. July 9th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 221**

The fetus reacts to what I do. I couldn’t believe it at first, but evidence is piling up. 

Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.

It’s gotten a lot colder in the last week; still, I think my larder and woodpile will last me through the rest of winter. They’re not even halfway gone.


	21. July 12th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 224**

I had a bad scare yesterday. I slipped and fell, badly, on my way back from the outhouse. I did not break anything, but I could have, and then what would I’ve done? 

And then I noticed stains in my underwear. 

It cost me my sleep that night. Well, a lot of things do; I rarely sleep more than a couple hours at a time ever since Arwaliss, but I was awake all through the night, waiting for my child to move and tell me he or she was alright.

It was the first time I felt that way. Not only connected – that had started three days ago, when I’d noticed that my child noticed me – but actually, actively worried. 

I still don’t quite know whether it’s a good thing; whenever I think of my baby I can’t help thinking of how it came to be, but I’m trying to tell myself he, or she, had nothing to do with that. It’s true, after all. 

I catch myself wondering if it’ll be a girl or a boy, and thinking about names. I’ve even started a list. But I have crossed out and drabbled so much that I’ve finally discarded it, angry about the waste of paper. There’s no need to name the baby the instant it’s born, after all. No register to submit a name to, no forms to fill out. I can wait for a while, judging its character, before I make a choice. Maybe it’ll – she will, or he will – remind me of someone. In a good way, hopefully. Not Buddha, nor Winston Churchill. 

I found myself calling the baby my primary subunit. Not a good idea.

The pang of missing Seven…

Face it, Janeway. 

You had a fair chance of loving someone. You did, after all. You just couldn’t bring yourself to make the move, could you. One after another, you found reasons, good, sensible reasons, plenty of reasons, usually, and withdrew. Good thing Chakotay isn’t pushier than he is, in personal matters. Good thing B’Elanna turned to Tom after you ignored her advances (his, too) – how long did it take? Two years? Stubborn Klingons. And then Seven. 

Thinking of what I could have had solves nothing. On, Janeway.


	22. July 25th, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 237**

I’m glad I bought a wrap-around skirt instead of a regular one. I’m really starting to gain by now. I do hope my store of food will suffice; I’m past the half-way mark, as with my firewood. 

Speaking of food: I had to throw away the entire stock of dried nutka fruit. Moldy, for all the trouble I went to in order to prevent it. The one I ate before I noticed made me vomit, still, but I think no further harm’s been done. 

My baby is bouncy. I think it’s a boy, for some reason. I even try to imagine how he’ll look, without thinking too much about how his father looked; whoever of them it was. People here are, at first sight, not much different from humans. Their tone of skin is a little darker than mine, a tad more to the red, too, but then, that’s true with some humans as well, isn’t it. There seem to be different phenotypes here, and why wouldn’t there be. On my forays into the village, I’ve been asked a few times if I wasn’t from Prar’nes (which apparently is another continent farther north), to which I’ve always managed to answer evasively. 

The one easily visible difference is in the shape of the ears; they’re not as furrowed as human ears, which is to my advantage, in fact – I have much better hearing than any of them. If people here talk under their breath, I can hear them from a few feet away. If they pursue me, too. Their eyes are larger than the average human’s, though not very noticeably. The smallness of mine adds to my reputation of not perceiving too much, or being, frankly, a few bricks shy. I don’t mind at all - on the contrary. It’s good to be underestimated, any officer worth their salt will know.

Apart from the ears and eyes, I don’t know about other physical differences as regards females; male bodies are different, but thinking about just how I came to know about that… Damnit, Janeway. Record it, set it down in black and white. Maybe it’ll help in some way, and even if it doesn’t, this is still a log.

The male torso is more slender than an average human’s would be. Even I am stouter than most of them were; stronger, too. It might be the same way with women, but clothing conceals most of that, so I can’t be certain. Arms and legs are attached slightly differently, not so much in position as in maneuverability, which also worked to my advantage when I fought them. The navel is positioned much higher than a human navel would be, and the distaste of the men that have seen me nude seems to indicate that this is a feature of both sexes, not just of the male one. Body hair is denser than in humans, and dark color hair seems more widespread, although, again, both factors could be a matter of phenotype. 

So maybe my baby will have a higher navel than other human babies. Or more body hair. Or less movability, although his bouncing suggests otherwise. 

Talking to him has stopped me from talking to other things, or to people who aren’t there.


	23. August 2nd, 2375

**Personal log of Kathryn Janeway, day 245**

I think winter has turned, although I’m careful about making assumptions. But the edge of the river is free from ice for the fifth day in a row, and the air seems noticeably warmer. 

I plod along. I still don’t sleep too well, but, and that is quite a bit more worrisome, these past few days I’ve been unusually upset. Downright despondent, at times, and I know that feeling too well to dismiss it. I’ve heard of postpartum depression, but I’m not postpartum yet, right? Yet some of the signs are there. Good grief, I know them well. Restless, and yet I can’t think of things to do. Dejected, and yet I can’t work up enough will to counteract it. Guilt-ridden, second-guessing every single one of my past decisions until my head spins.

Knowing how aversely my mood can affect my baby, I try to keep these thoughts at bay by concentrating on positive things, but it’s getting harder to find them. I’m thirty weeks along now. As far as I can recall, my pregnancy is much swifter than Sam Wildman’s was. Human pregnancies last for – well, nine months, which would be thirty-nine weeks, which would put me nine weeks ahead of a birth without any form of medical help if this was a purely human baby. That would upset the most laid-back expecting mother, wouldn’t it? 

I try to remember, every day, what I know about pregnancies, and births, and emergency medical procedures you can apply to yourself. And still I can’t think of any woman I’ve heard of giving birth all on her own. Any. I mean, a Betazoid birth is practically a public occasion, and even Vulcans are renowned for the prowess of their midwives. 

Add to that the worry whether my comm. array works, or whom it will attract in case it does work. 

Hell. I wish… 

But wishing never worked.


	24. August 21st, 2375

“Captain, I am picking up a signal. It appears to be,” Data taps a few commands into his console, then looks up, clearly baffled, “sir, it has a Starfleet signature. It seems to be a combadge distress signal, although curiously modulated.”

“Can we get a lock on where it’s coming from?” Picard asks, feeling just as intrigued. They are in the outer fringes of Federation space, after all. After the Son’a Affair, Starfleet Command apparently considered the Enterprise (or her captain) too much of a loose cannon to include her in the Dominion War, and thus had designed them border control in the opposite direction. But of course the Federation border in this part of space, nothing but empty parsecs upon empty parsecs, needs watching. There might be dragons, after all. Oh, and if they are – map them.

“Positive, Captain. It originated in the solar system we just passed.”

Picard doesn’t even have to think about it. “Bring us about, Ensign th’Vohl. Let’s see what’s back there. Commander, can you give me anything more on that system?”

“Accessing, sir.” _Ten years and more I’ve known Data, and he still tilts his head like this._ “The Martarin system was discovered and explored twenty-three point five years ago, Captain. It consists of seven planets, one of which, Martara III, is an M-class type. There is also one M-class moon orbiting the larger gas giant, Martara VI. At the time of discovery, Martara III held a pre-industrialized civilization consisting of about three hundred million individuals. Our passing scan just now indicates that this state has not advanced significantly, sir.”

th’Vohl calls out, “Pulling into orbit now, sir, right on top of that signal.”

“Excellent, Ensign.” Almost electrified by the prospect of doing something, Picard gets up and takes a few steps towards the screen. “Data – readings?” 

Golden eyes peruse a stream of data too quick for human minds to follow. “Are coming in more clearly now, Captain. No communication, only the distress signal. I would hypothesize that the combadge was modified this way by its owner. I am detecting one life sign in close proximity to it. Sir-” the baffled way Data’s head comes up is so familiar that Picard can’t hide his smile. “It is human.” 

“Any other life signs in the vicinity, human or no?” Riker asks, a frown in his voice.

“Negative, sir, although…” again, Data’s fingers dance across his console. “Correction. There are two life signs present.”

Intrigued, Picard turns towards him. “Two? You said-” 

“Sensor readings indicate an unborn child.” A frown, more tapping, “about to be born.”

“What?!” Riker bursts out from behind. “You’re saying that, in the middle of goddamn interstellar nowhere, we just happen to stumble upon a displaced human female Starfleet officer who’s _in labor?”_

“This seems to be the case, sir.”

“Data. Will.” Picard raises his hand to stop them, then turns to look intently at the screen, as if he could see a solution to the puzzle in the swirls of the planet’s atmosphere. “Bridge to sickbay - Doctor, this is the captain. Prepare to receive a human woman in labor via medical emergency transport.”

“Aye, Captain.” Doctor Crusher sounds unflappable, as always. 

“Transporter room,” Picard nods a prompt to Data, “lock onto the signal Commander Data’s putting through to you, and beam the person right to sickbay.”

“Ready, sir.” Two-word answers. _Aye, Captain. Ready, sir._ Smooth, efficient, professional. And a woman in labor, about to be beamed up. Picard nods, once, tersely.

“Energize. Commander Riker, you have the bridge. Counselor, would you accompany me?”

“Of course, Captain.”

 

* * *

 

“But-” he breaks off, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Believe me, _you’d_ never forget that voice either, Jean-Luc, be it in the throes of birth or in your instructor’s office, telling you she couldn’t _possibly_ have scored that low on exophysiology. The woman lying on biobed 3 is Kathryn Janeway.”

“She made quite an impact on you, didn’t she,” Troi smiles tersely, trying to lighten the mood. To a captain who has known her for over a decade, though, the steadfast counselor seems just as fazed by what she just witnessed as all the sickbay crew are. Judging by the doctor’s report, it had been… disorderly, apparently. Then again, that had been expectable, if he understood correctly what Crusher has just said. 

“She was _right_ , Deanna,” Doctor Crusher says, swallowing a sigh of exasperation, or exhaustion. “And I didn’t like eating crow then – can’t say I’ve grown fonder of it in the meantime, either.”

“Doctor,” Picard cuts in, trying to bring the conversation back to topic, “I hesitate to restate the obvious, but… can you verify that this is Captain Kathryn Janeway, and that she has just given birth to a human-native hybrid?”

“Yes, Captain,” this time, the sigh does come out with the words – abundantly so. “That is exactly what I can verify. DNA match in the databanks, one witness as to identity, five as to the birth.” Crusher watches him rise, her eyebrows mirroring his motion. “What’s wrong, Jean-Luc?

“Kathryn Janeway captained Voyager, if you’ll remember.”

It’s Troi who gets it first. “The ship that disappeared in the Badlands. Wasn’t it declared lost and then heard of again, somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant?”

“Delta Quadrant, Counselor,” Picard nods, “but other than that, you’re right. Details have been classified, but every starship captain has been told to keep an eye open, nevertheless. We’ve found our share of missing ships, after all. If Janeway is here, Voyager might be around, too.”

Crusher frowns, deeply. “Labor had been in progress for at least half a day when you had her beamed in, Captain. And she’d been _alone_ , from what you told me. No signs of the child’s father, of other persons, certainly no signs of non-natives or you would have said so by now.” She cocks her head but barely waits for his affirmation before going on, “I severely doubt Janeway would have given birth alone if her ship or crew were anywhere around.”

“Voyager had the ability to land, Doctor,” Picard insists. “And even if our sensors haven’t detected it, the ship might be on that planet. That _pre-warp_ planet.”

Crusher’s eyes harden. “I understand the implications, _Captain_ , but at the moment, my patient is my primary concern. The birth has left her terribly weak. I doubt she’d have survived if we hadn’t found her. She’s asleep now, and I plan to keep her that way as long as I can-” she raises her voice when Picard opens his mouth to protest, “-she needs to rest, Jean-Luc.”

“I agree, sir,” Troi chimes in, face and voice grave. “She’s exhausted, physically and mentally; rather more than a birth would warrant. I can only hypothesize at this point, of course, but the absence of the child’s father might indicate that he left her, or died, or even that this is an unwanted pregnancy. In any case, Kathryn Janeway has been down there at least long enough to conceive and carry a child.”

“Not necessarily. The father could have been from another species off-planet,” Picard frowns.

Crusher shakes her head dubiously. “Wherever he came from, his species’ DNA doesn’t appear in our databanks. Then again, we don’t have DNA data on the Martarans, obviously.”

“I’ll send a team down to retrieve her personal effects, Doctor,” Picard tells her. “I’ll tell them to look out for DNA matches.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Troi crosses her arms and frowns, looking at her feet, then up at the captain. “Captain, I think I’ll join them, if you don’t mind.”

“By all means, Counselor.”

“See if you can find _any_ information on the native population, Deanna,” Crusher adds. “I don’t have to tell you how difficult the first few months can be for a hybrid child. I already have the baby in an infant ICU and she’s stable for the moment, but anything we can find out will help us extrapolate what we might find ourselves faced with. A DNA match would be ideal, but,” she shrugs, “anything will do, really.”


	25. Chapter 25

“Relax.”

Janeway knows that voice. She knows the other sounds surrounding her, the scent, the _taste_ of the air. The hum coming up her back, through whatever it is she’s lying on.

“You’re fine, and so is your daughter.” 

Janeway struggles to open her eyes. _God, I feel wretched._ Then something registers. “Daughter?” What is that woman talking about? Her voice sounds as raspy as her throat feels, and still she can’t quite get her eyes to open. “What-”

“Relax, Captain.” There’s a hand on her shoulder, and suddenly she feels a paranoid urge to slap it away. The voice ( _I know that voice_ ) continues smoothly, “You’re in sickbay, on the Enterprise, and I’ve had to bandage your eyes. There was a slight detachment of both your retinas due to labor stress, and I want your eyes to fully recover; it’ll take another run with the regenerator and six more hours of darkness after that. Think you can bear being blindfolded that long?”

A sickbay. The Enterprise. But – labor? And that voice, lilting, musical. _You were right about the Andorian mating cycle. My mistake. I’m sorry._ “Beverly Crusher?”

The hand disappears from Janeway’s shoulder, then grasps her fingers and squeezes briefly before letting go again. “Guilty as charged.” The warmth in that voice is still familiar. Janeway finds herself reaching out and clamps down on the impulse, but, apparently, Crusher is observant enough to see it anyway. The touch of cool fingers reappears at the back of Janeway’s hand. “I have a glass of water, if you feel up to it.”

“Yes, please.”

“I’ll help you sit up. Go easy, though, your insides might still feel a little-” A sharp gasp interrupts her. “-sore.”

“I’ll say.” Janeway winces at another shot of pain, but, finally upright, finds she can manage.

“Here goes.” The smooth coolness of glass touches her fingers. She takes small sips. It tastes strange, so strange. _Different from… what?_ “I don’t need to tell you that it was a difficult birth,” the doctor goes on while Janeway slowly empties the glass – it had only been half-filled in any case, and a good thing too; her hands are shaking, she’d have spilled its contents, had it been fuller. “Hybrid births usually are, and usually they’re closely supervised so that some things don’t happen.”

Birth? Hybrid? _What is she talking about?_ “What do you mean?”

“Your placenta penetrated your uterine walls so severely that I nearly had to resort to a hysterectomy, and believe me, that hasn’t been standard medical practice for well over two centuries.” 

Crusher’s voice is light, and much nicer to concentrate on than her actual words. Her fingers take the empty glass from Janeway’s hand, efficient, strong, solicitous. Janeway wonders whether her eyes would be, too. The Doctor’s would be. He… where… what the-? 

“Doctor, what’s wrong?” A stranger’s voice, through shrill sickbay warning beeps. Through the rising darkness, Janeway can hear the whirring of a medical tricorder’s sensor. Then, a hypo, and sweet oblivion.

* * *

“She went into shock. Her adrenaline levels rose so rapidly that I had to sedate her. At least the child is doing fine; by the way, thanks for the medical scans, Data.” Crusher’s elbows are on the conference table; her voice and eyes are grave except for that fleeting smile, just now, at the android across her.

“You are welcome, Doctor.”

“I’ve gone through the information we have on Voyager,” Riker offers, “there isn’t much that’s readily available, though. The whole mission was declared classified; friends and relatives have been asked to send any messages they wish transmitted to Starfleet Command, but not to get their hopes up that contact will be re-established anytime soon.”

“I can add a little more detail to that, Number One,” Picard leans back, steepling his fingers. “A batch of messages was indeed sent, about a year ago, together with encrypted astrometric and tactical data. There is no intelligence whether it ever reached its destination, though, and the contents of Starfleet’s message is classified beyond captain’s level.” Several pairs of eyebrows rise simultaneously, teasing a small smile onto Picard’s face that disappears as soon as he returns to his thoughts. “Another attempt at communication a day later ran into a dead end; apparently the comm. array that put Voyager’s first message through didn’t work, or even exist, any longer. The whole region seemed to be highly unstable, so it was declared off-limits for the time being; the level of classification on the whole matter was increased afterwards. From what I’ve found out, the Hamburg and the Brown were sent to investigate; I’m not aware of any conclusive data reported as of now.”

“They can’t have given up, though, can they?” LaForge leans back in his chair, hands gripping the table. “I mean, there are so many possibilities to at least try and contact them, if not bringing them home – I can think of at least three,” he snaps his fingers, “right off the top of my head.”

Picard nods at him. “I’m certain Starfleet Command is doing exactly that, Mister LaForge. And until we can provide any conclusive information, I want them to continue doing so. What we have here is _not_ evidence that Voyager is back in the Alpha Quadrant, nor that it was destroyed, nor anything else of the kind. What we have is a displaced Starfleet officer who’s in need of help, and a lot of open questions. 

“Commander,” Picard turns to look at Troi, “what have you found on the planet?”

The counselor leans forwards. “Evidence suggests that Captain Janeway has been on this planet for months, and was set to go on for longer; we found a cave with signs of prolonged use as habitation, another with food stores, several large caches of fuel – everything you need for long-term survival, all of it executed almost picture-perfect. There were primitive medical supplies, and evidence that Captain Janeway was attempting to get through this birth on her own. Both these supplies and some of the stored food must have been acquired elsewhere, though – Data?” Troi tilts her head slightly towards her right, where the android is seated.

Mirroring her pose – head tilted, fingers lightly knitted, Data picks up the thread. “Sensors showed a settlement of three thousand, two hundred and seventy-eight individuals at a distance of eighteen kilometers from the location, Counselor.” 

“I thought as much. Captain Janeway must have engaged in some form of trade. She had paper and pen, sir.” Troi reaches to her side and produces an inches-thick stack of paper from a box on the seat to her left. “These are her personal logs. I… have only read the first and last entry, sir; the first one suggests that Captain Janeway piloted Voyager in some form of suicidal ramming maneuver, presumably in order to save something, but there is no saying whether she succeeded. No explanation of how she came to be on the planet, either. From what I gathered, not even she knew at that point.” She takes a deep breath. “Both entries in themselves are…bleak, but determined. The last one indicates that Captain Janeway was on the planet for ten months, maybe longer. It puts her pregnancy in its thirtieth week, but I can’t say when it was written, exactly.”

“She seemed farther along when we beamed her up, but there really isn’t any way of telling, with a hybrid baby,” Crusher picks up at that point, pursing her lips. “She might have been too preoccupied or tired to write log entries. Or maybe she wrote that one yesterday.”

Picard nods, then returns his gaze to Troi. “Proceed, Counselor.”

“I don’t have any further information right now, sir, but I do suggest we give Captain Janeway time and leeway to regain her footing. If she is the sole survivor of Voyager, and has been stranded on a foreign planet without any outside contact for ten months or more, the psychological pressure implied…” the counselor drops her eloquent eyes to the table.

“I understand, Counselor.” Picard pushes his chair back to rise. “Put yourself at her disposal; Doctor, I want both of you to keep close watch on her. Please alert me as soon as she’s responsive, however; I promise,” he smiles at the two blue-collared commanders, “I will go easy on her. Geordi, Data – I want you to search this system and the surrounding area from top to bottom as much as we can without being detected by the Martarans; leave no stone unturned. If there is any trace of Voyager or her crew, any indication of how Janeway came to be here, I want to find it.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Excellent. Dismissed.” He watches them file out, Data already offering ideas to LaForge. Then he turns to Riker, who hasn’t moved yet. 

“Anything you want to add, Number One?”

“Indeed, sir. I knew Janeway at the Academy. Deanna said ‘determined’ just then – well, Kathryn Janeway certainly was that.” His lips purse and he leans forward in his chair, lower arms on the table, hands curled around each other. Eyes intent, boring into those of his commanding officer. “Sir, she’d _never_ abandon her crew. She switched from science to command track, that’s where we met. I’ve yet to encounter someone with more sheer force of will, or a stronger sense of responsibility. Almost overtook me, too, on her way to making lieutenant. Amazing woman.” He shakes his head. “Captain, there are rumors that she’s disfigured in some way, and what Deanna hinted at didn’t sound too sunny, either. If we can do anything to help her, we’ve got to. We’ve _got_ to.”

“I don’t intend to do anything less, Will. I should offer that help to Counselor Troi, though, if I were you. Sounds like you could cheer our guest up.”

“Well…” this time, Riker’s mouth conveys hesitant embarrassment. “You see, sir, I tried that back then. In the Academy. To cheer her up.”

Picard’s eyebrows rise when he catches the harmonics of that. “She didn’t take kindly to your advances?”

“She shot me down, sir. That glare of hers is lethal.”

“Well, offer her an apology, then.” Riker ducks his head. “Come now, Number One. You said you wanted to help, and you have a connection to her, however uncomfortable.” Picard smiles a little at his first officer’s discomfort – and Will Riker is man enough to smile back, eyes rolling. “Brave that glare, Commander. I’m sure it’ll help Janeway recover if she has someone she can fry a little.” 

“Aye, Captain.”


End file.
